AL, FROM BELLE GLADE, FLORIDA

a sliver of a young man
with skinny sucker sticks
for arms and fists the candy
skin thick
muddy like oil from a car
cadillac big and american
made

a fighter
all punch and pimple
and cane ash because
sweet gets torched in
belle glade
down in the muck where
the mighty are made

told me
he was the number one
boxer in the state
top ten in the country
used to being
punched in the face
don’t happen much though
he said because he knows
how to move
knows how to move
away from knuckles
knows how to move
away from knockouts
knows how to dance
and dodge and duck
and wait
to devastate

but all i could see
was a child in a
gloveless world
with broken bits that
have mended abnormally
a boy with a heart on fire
the saccharine long burnt off
the ash floating like cold
snow behind his eyes
a kid that doesn’t really know
how to move
at all but knows
how to make a living
throwing haymakers